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Running head: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: A PRACTICE, NOT A TREND
Knowledge Management: A Practice, Not a Trend
Byron Godfrey
Coleen Sawaya
David Tiensvold
Harold Johnson
National University
ODV 601 Integrating Performance Management
Technology & Organizational Communications
15 August 2009
Executive Summary
Your employees harness a power that can not be measured or graphed, this power is knowledge and taking that knowledge and building on it will be the key to longevity and success within any industry. Any organization looking to blow their competition away, must be well versed in Knowledge Management (KM), have Knowledge Managers, Knowledge Workers and a way to harness every byte of explicit and tacit knowledge currently bouncing around within the walls of their organization. This paper will be of interest to anyone wanting to learn about Knowledge Management, its characteristics and is sure to spawn interest in further studies in the subject of Knowledge Management.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary (David) …………………..………………………………. 2
Purpose (David) ……………………………..…….……………………………. 4
Leadership, Technology & Change (Byron) ….……………………………. 4
Knowledge Management(Harold)….…..…..….… ………………………… 7
Sustaining Knowledge(Coleen)…..…...……. ..…………………………… 10
3 Knowledge Levels (David)................……………………………. 12
Tree-map: An Example of a KM Tool (David)…………………………….… 14
Conclusion (David). ……………………………………………………………. 15
References ……….…………………………..………………………………….16
Knowledge Management: A Practice not a Trend
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to conduct research on Knowledge Management, an organization’s attempt to harnessing both the tacit and explicit knowledge of their employees, Knowledge Management (KM), first a trend, has become more important as a business practice as industries evolve and globalize. Historically, business could rely on their employees to remain employed within their company from entry level to retirement. However, in today’s workplace a 100% turn around is not uncommon and with that the majority of tacit knowledge, skills and abilities of each exiting employee leaves with them. In an attempt to prevent this organizations have began to codify and store as much of this information as possible and labeled these efforts as knowledge management.
This paper will introduce Knowledge Management, leadership challenges, technology and change. Additionally, the research will explain how to sustain the knowledge and ways to map the collect knowledge as well as how to develop employees using knowledge learned and gained.
Leadership, Technology & Change
In the age of global mobility, organizations are constantly struggling to incorporate innovative methodology for this thing called “technology.” In today’s global economy, many organizational leaders are beginning to realize that they need to transform their organizations into an information technology infrastructure – with the hopes of expanding their enterprise and creating leverage opportunities for a competitive advantage in today’s global market. Many leaders within these transitional companies are inquiring to professional business consultants about just “how they exactly go about building a “chaordic” organization that is adaptive to changing conditions, controlling at the center while empowering at the periphery, leveraging worldwide learning capabilities, and that transcends geographic and divisional borders” (Beaman, 2003). The answer is creating an informational technology data based infrastructure that will allow the leaders of these transitional corporations the ability to preserve their collective intelligence for future use – while also providing the capability of retrieving historical data for statistical analysis and codifying knowledge for future use as well. The ability for an organization to retain the knowledge that is embedded within its infrastructure is crucial to its sustainability – as well as serving as a learning tool for the leaders within the company structure, thereby providing them the ability to look back for statistical errors within its realm.
Organizational hierarchy must begin understand the importance of knowledge retention, as well as coming to grips with the fact that managers of knowledge need to understand the basic principles of leadership. Leadership is the ability to influence and motivate others towards a desired goal while applying analytical foresight and incorporating a detailed SWOT analysis to recognize any potential threats. Ronald Heifetz (1994) argues that “leadership is more then just simply influencing people” (p.20). He goes on in further to explain that “leaders are more likely to produce socially useful outcomes by setting goals that meet the needs of both the leader and the follower” (p.20).
Jim Collin’s (2001) book Good To Great, stated that “there are five levels of leadership that need to be identified by leaders within the workforce in order to maximize their potential of influence upon their peers within their organization” (p.20). He stated that all individuals of responsibility should strive to reach the highest level of leadership - which is level five. Collins also stated that “level five leaders are those individuals within a corporation that build greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional good will – while also channeling their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company” (Collins, 2001, p.21). Collin’s book [Good To Great] referenced that many great leaders strive towards being at the pinnacle of their craft, but most leaders never really surpass the level four of leadership. Level four leaders can be considered effective leaders. Level four leaders leadership ability allows them to instill commitment within the infrastructure, and establish a vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision – while stimulating higher performance standards within their organization. Understanding levels of leadership is (or should be)the focal point for individuals within the organizational hierarchy to achieve success, but just as importantly leaders need to be able to identify their own leadership traits within themselves which ultimately falls within the various levels of leadership.
The Trait Theory is a major approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. The trait approach was one of the first systematic attempts to study leadership. Peter G. Northhouse (2007) referenced in his book Leadership: Theory and Practice, that leadership trait was first studied in the early 20th century to determine what made certain people great leaders. He stated that the theories that were developed were called the great man theories, because “they focused on indentifying the innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political, and military leaders” (p.15). Kouzes and Posner (2002) identified in their book The Leadership Challenge that true leaders value their craft of inspiring and influencing workers toward the organizational objective, and they continue to focus on how to become better at leading people. They focused on five leadership traits that people look for in a leader. Kouzes and Posner stated that “if you are able to increase your skill in these five traits, that you will make it easier for people to want to follow you” (p. 24). The less time you have to spend on getting people to follow you, the more time you have to spend refining exactly where you want to go and how to get there.
The five leadership traits are:
1. Honest
2. Forward-Looking
3. Competent
4. Inspiring
5. Intelligent
Organizational leaders in today’s global economy need to understand that their strengths and weakness play to those unique qualities to help drive their employees to their desired objective. Leaders within the organization need to engage their coworkers in the art of communication to get a better understanding of the day-to day operations – as well as to identify any unforeseen possible threats. Stan Herman (2002) alludes to conversation as the core of any business. He suggest this because “ collaborative knowledge creation and decision making involves content, combined with structured conversations for action” (p.44) Communication is crucial to all leadership exchanges, and the use of emotional intelligence is critical in identifying methods for resolving conflict within the organization – as well as interacting with colleagues. Kouzes and Posner (2002) describe emotional intelligence as “the ability to manage ourselves and our relationship effectively – it consists of four capabilities: self-awareness, self management, social awareness, and social skill” (p.284). Another process these transformational leaders need to identify within their inner being is their ability to adapt to difficult situations during a period of time where chaos seems to be evident within their organization. Relationships are vital in business, and individuals of responsibility within the organization need to examine the Transformational Change Theory. The theory is a shift in the business culture of an organization resulting from a change in the underlying strategy and processes that the organization has used in the past. A transformational change is designed to be organization-wide and is enacted over a period of time. “The effective way to manage change successfully is to create it” (Drucker, 2004, p.69). The situational leadership theory also allows leaders to determine the nature of the occurrence, and identify which leadership style is best for handling circumstances. Northhouse (2007) states that “situational leadership stresses that leaders needs to find out about their subordinate’s needs then adapt their style accordingly. Leaders can not use one single style; they must be willing to change their style to meet the requirements of the situation” (p.97). “The servant leader’s paramount satisfaction lies in the growth and development of those they lead in the organization” (Marshall, 2003, p.71).
Organizational leaders need to clearly identify their occupational objective – while outlining a detailed descriptive task analysis of their responsibility. Organizational leaders also need to understand and identify levels of leadership within their organization in relation to identifying leaders and managers within their infrastructure. Leadership is a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Management is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises of planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organizations (a group of one or more people or entities) efforts for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Northhouse (2007) reveals the difference between the two entities: “management was created as way to reduce chaos in organizations and to make them run more effectively and efficiently” (p.9) Effective is doing the right things, while efficiency is doing things right. Northhouse also states “the overriding function of management is to provide order ands consistency to organizations, whereas the primary function of leadership is to produce change and movement. Management is about seeking order and stability; leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change” (p.10). Tom Marshall (2003) author of Understanding Leadership goes a step further by clearly explaining the difference between the two leadership roles. He says that you can have a good leader who is also a good manager, or a manager who is a good leader, but the two functions are quite different and must not be confused. He elaborates “Management is essentially the stewardship of resources, and its concern is making the organization work efficiently and effectively. This involves logistics, information, people, and systems; it builds teams, control budgets, measures performance, monitors progress, and initiates corrective action where needed. These operating functions are vital to the success of the venture, but they have essentially nothing to do with leadership. You can be using every one of them and not be leading at all – you are merely reacting to situations as they arise (p.10). Understanding Leadership (2003) reveals that individuals may be able to lead effectively, and not yet be involved with operational or managerial activities. Leadership, in other words, is not management, and it’s not administration. Peter Senge (2004) said that “the executive who works at making strengths productive – his own as well as those of others – works at making the organizational performance compatible with personal achievement” (p.276). Great leaders have the ability to influence the employees to increase knowledge management in the organization. These leaders create a learning organization where sharing knowledge is part of the daily routine.
Knowledge Mangement
We will present you with a definition and a brief history of knowledge management (KM) including its informal beginnings (pre-internet) and the virtual explosion onto the scene as a must have commodity for knowledge based organizations. We will then explain why knowledge management is needed in order for companies to be competitive. Finally, we will go through the actual implementation process using a KM strategy focused on initial needs analysis.
The term Knowledge Management (KM) is not new. One could say it has been around for decades under various aliases and has its beginning in a variety of disciplines and domains. Peter Drucker, Paul Strassmann, and Peter Senge are pioneers of this movement in the United States. Druker and Strassmann have stressed the growing importance of information and explicit knowledge as organizational recourses, and Senge has focused on the “learning organization”, a cultural dimension of managing knowledge. In the early 1980’s, the importance of knowledge as an asset was recognized, however, there was little effort by mainstream economists to create a strategy for managing it. In the meantime, need for a method to organize information in a meaningful way could not be ignored. Technology’s complex nature demanded organization devise a plan to deal with the exponential increases in the amount of available knowledge and increasingly complex products and processes. Before the internet, Doug Engelbart’s “Augment” (an early hypertext/groupware application) and Acksyn’s and McCracken’s “Knowledge Management System” (an open distributed hypermedia tool) were early attempts at using an automated system of storing and sharing knowledge.
By the late 1980’s/early 1990’s, knowledge management articles began to appear in well known journals. A big moment for knowledge management occurred when Tom Steward published his 1991 article, “Brainstorm” in Fortune magazine. This was the introduction of the phrase knowledge management to the popular press. The internet sensation carried the message of knowledge management nation (and world) wide. Companies are now actively using knowledge management strategies to maintain a competitive advantage. Regular seminars and conferences are held by experts to report to organizations the latest innovations in KM.
Today there are at least 43 “definitions” of knowledge management that attempt to explain exactly what is and what it is used for. One article compared the phrase knowledge management with a doctor attempting to describe “heath care” or a CEO trying to define “management” or a CFO explaining “compensation”. Like heath care, management, or compensation, knowledge management cannot be explained in a sentence or even a paragraph. It is a process that is ongoing and has many levels.
One formal definition of knowledge management is the deliberate and systematic coordination of an organization’s people, technology, processes, and organizational structure in order to add value through the promotion of creating, sharing, and applying knowledge as well as through the feeding of valuable lessons learned and best practices into corporate memory in order to foster continued organizational learning. I think this is an adequate definition of what knowledge management is. However, to make the meaning of KM clearer, I would like to explain why it is needed in today’s corporate environment.
To understand knowledge management, you must understand the changing workforce. Workers are getting older and with age is experience. Long-serving staffs have a depth of knowledge that is relied upon by other staff, particularly in environments where little effort has been put into capturing or managing knowledge at an organizational level. What this means is if these experienced older workers leave the company, with them goes their knowledge and experience. There needs to be a mechanism in place to capture and share information with the entire organization. Doing so will ensure valuable information is maintained and accessible. Other issues warranting investment in an effective knowledge management system for companies with geographically separated elements include: cultural issues, duplication of effort, and inconsistencies in practices. Identify the correct KM strategy is the key to solving many of these issues.
In this section we will discuss the steps to take when implementing KM in an organization. First, you must realize there are different methods and techniques that can be used when implementing KM. There is no one method that will work with all organizations. In fact, each attempt at implementation will be unique to an organization’s size, strategic direction, history and available resources (to name a few). What we provided is general guidance for implementation based on an initial needs analysis.
The first step to implement a KM strategy is to identify the problem. To identify the problem, you must interact with the organization. The article identifies two possible methods for interacting and identifying issues associated with the company, “Top-down” and “Bottom-up”. Top Down: The overall strategic direction of the organization is used to identify the focus of the knowledge management initiative. This is reflected in a series of activities designed to meet this broad goal.
Bottom Up: Research is conducted into the activities of staff involved in key business processes. The findings of this research highlights key staff needs and issues, which are then, tackled through a range of knowledge management initiatives.
There are two common mistakes people make when implementing a KM strategy. One is to focus solely on the top down approach which primarily focuses on upper management’s “vision”, identifying high-level objectives such as ‘become a knowledge-enabled organization’. Focusing on higher level strategic direction makes it more difficult to identify with lower level workers who hold valuable information that upper management may not be aware of. With little understanding of key issues and needs of the staff throughout the organization, these initiatives found it difficult to engage staff in the required cultural and process change.
Implementing the wrong KM strategy is the second common mistake and is directly related to the first. By potentially missing key information from the front-line staff by focusing on the top-down approach, it is likely that you would not identify the real problems with the organization and as a result implement the wrong KM strategy. As a result, many of these initiatives had little long-term impact on the organization, despite the initial efforts.
It is recommended to use a combination of both methods with emphasis on the bottom up method, supplement by the top down method. The reason is that the front-line employees such as receptionist, salespeople, and operators have the field experience and face to face interaction with customers. They are the ones that must have information to present to customer and they are the ones who know when there is a gap in information. This is not true for most upper management who do not get an opportunity to be a part of day to day operations on the ground level.
It is recommended to use the holistic approach to identify a wide range of issues. The easiest way to get to the cause of the problem is to keep it simple when doing your analysis. By starting with the needs analysis, approaches can be targeted to address the most critical issues, or to deliver the greatest business benefits. The first step is to identify the key staff groups who are usually directly involved with exchanging information with the customer. Once these individuals have been identified, you must decide which need analysis technique will be used. There are a variety of techniques including: facilitated discussions, focus groups, surveys, staff interviews, and workplace observation. It is recommended that more than one method is used to ensure you get a more complete idea of the issues employees are having.
Once you have completed your needs analysis with the key staff, you should then concentrate on the strategic focus to get ‘top level’ perspective. There are many sources available to determine the company’s strategic focus. These sources include: interviews with senior management, organizational strategy documents, results of staff satisfaction surveys, external market research, and industry ‘best practices’. You should also make an effort to use more than one of these methods the get a clearer idea of the company’s strategic focus. When all the research is collected and interviews completed, it is time to present your findings and proposed a knowledge management strategy.
Your research should uncover a broad range of issues within the organization. Some of the more common findings according to the text are: difficulty finding important corporate information, reliance on rumor and gossip as the key source of organizational news, and duplication of effort between regions. Fortunately, your previous research gives you insight on the organization and will be a valuable tool when making your recommendations for the organization. Some common knowledge management strategies recommended include: formalizing communities of practice, facilitating skills transfer from retiring staff, and implementing new learning approaches, including e-learning. Remember each organization is unique. You will have to approach each organization with an open mind because no one method will work for every organization.
Sustaining Knowledge
In today’s ever changing fast pace global environment, corporations need to acknowledge the importance of knowledge embedded within their employees and incorporate strategic processes to document and share that knowledge.
Many analysts and writers have described knowledge and expertise as interchangeable while others have split the two and separated the definitions. Prusak & Matson (2006 p. 30) said that “Business organizations are coming to view knowledge as their most valuable and strategic resource.” Similarly, Lank (1997) has stated that knowledge and its manifestation in the expertise of people is nowadays seen as the greatest asset of value creation for organizations. However, some analysts have differentiated between knowledge and expertise. Bender & Fish defined knowledge as originating in the head of the individual and builds on information that is transformed and enriched by personal experience, beliefs and values with decision and action-relevant meaning. They continued to state that the knowledge formed by an individual will differ from another person receiving the same information. Knowledge is the mental state of ideas, facts, concepts, data and techniques, recorded in an individual’s memory. They differentiate expertise as more specialized, a deep knowledge and understanding of a certain field. An expert is able to create uniquely new knowledge and solutions in his/her field of expertise. In this sense expertise is gained through experience, training and education. It is developed over a long period of time and most importantly it remains with that person.
Knowledge is the most powerful tool an employee can arm him/herself with to become an infallible asset to the corporation. Individuals have the knowledge and expertise to achieve successful business goals of the organization. However, the monopoly of information can be harmful to the company. Therefore, organizations need to apply strategic planning to develop organizational tools to create a culture where knowledge sharing is not a threat to the individual. Individuals need to be motivated to share the knowledge, and feel empowered to be part of the organizations achievements. If these programs are not developed to promote knowledge sharing, individuals within the organization will likely leave with their knowledge, and the organization will suffer.
Organizations need to develop programs to share knowledge before it walks out the door. In an article written by Mohammad & Sohrabi they discuss how a software firm realized that they needed to create a program to track the knowledge, track who has the knowledge, and where it is. “A structured way of managing knowledge and treating the knowledge and its owners as valuable assets could help the company leverage the knowledge they possess” (Mohammad & Sohrabi, 2009). The article continues to discuss a proposed solution of readiness assessment which is a process of implementing and gauging knowledge management. Accordingly, this assessment should provide answers to two fundamental questions: “What is a firm’s current Knowledge Management capability? And what changes must be in place before embarking on a Knowledge Management initiative? An instrument to assess readiness should be developed based on the premise that Knowledge Management is enhanced through critical success factors” (Mohammad & Sohrabi, 2009). The article continues to discuss success factors which were extracted from other papers dealing with knowledge management which were used to embark this project.
De Long & Davenport discuss a program Siemens has in place. This program directs Siemens managers to ask five questions when determining the best method to transfer valuable, imperiled knowledge. The questions are:
1. What is the Life Cycle of this knowledge? – Will the knowledge be obsolete in a few months or still valuable in 15 years from now?
2. What types of knowledge are involved? Explicit ruled-based knowledge that is easily documented or tacit experiential knowledge, or implicit knowledge (explicit knowledge not yet articulated)?
3. How much time is there before the expert leaves the organization? Is it a matter of days or years?
4. What is the expert’s level of motivation and capability for sharing the knowledge? What is the successor’s motivation and capability for acquiring that knowledge?
5. What are the costs of applying the specific methods of knowledge retention being considered?
Another example by Kamph (2007) focuses on the utility industry. In that sector there have been many talks about escalating demand for power, and demand will outstrip supply in the near future. The power industry is also experiencing a shortage of critical supply in skilled employees. They have projected due to retiring employees, the skill level of the company will decrease by 15 %, and the error rate would increase from 5 to 6 % over the next 5 years. The utility company looked at their entire range of the organizational knowledge and actual costs associated to determine and design an effective strategy to combat the knowledge loss. This included calculating the costs for recruiting, new hire development programs, supplemental training programs, attrition and skill losses, error rates, process improvements and estimated efficiency improvements, and based on these costs the company has the data it needs to develop a long-term plan to meet the challenges of the changing workforce and improve its corporate financial and competitive standing. The utility company embarked on a series of workforce optimization program. One of their improvements was 10 hour supplemental training for each fully qualified employee would add one additional skill a year for each person. The utility company continues to strategize and is on its way to improving its knowledge retention so that it will have the critical skills it needs in the future.
Chevron is an organization “focused on rewarding efforts to build a learning organization by sharing and managing knowledge throughout their company” (Prusak & Matson, 2006 p. 183). In 1995 Kenneth T. Derr gave a speech stating “We will create an organization that learns faster and better than competitors through benchmarking … through sharing and implementing best practices … by learning from experience … and through continuous individual learning and personal growth”. (Prusak & Matson, 2006 p 184). The Chevron way is a guiding set of objectives, principles and values that define who they are, where they are going, and how they need to interact with each other to get there. Kenneth continues to say that one of the vital successes is building a learning organization. Chevron encourages employees to share information and the CEO does share best practices with employees. In addition top people from companies such as HP, Motorola, and GE are asked to speak at Chevron’s monthly Management Committee meetings, and during these meeting there is a forum for the Chevron teams to tell their success stories in using knowledge to improve operations and results. The formula for continuous improvement for Chevron is clear objectives, the opportunity to share rewards and an empowered workforce. (Pruzak & Matson, 2006). The objectives can be a financial goal or production target. The sharing rewards may be their Success Sharing bonus program, which is based partly on corporate earnings, partly on competitor earnings, and partly on safety and operating costs. Though sharing rewards isn’t managing knowledge, it gives everyone a good reason to do it. The empowerment delegates’ authority helps people feel ownership for their work and give their best to the organization. Chevron has been recognized as one of the Top 20 most admired knowledge enterprises. They recognize that “Yesterday’s learning curve has become today’s race track and that means building a superior learning organization is now a necessity for any company that wants to be a top competitor” (Pruzak & Matson, 2006 p 191).
Sustaining Knowledge management is critical to the success of any organization. If organizations want to continue to be competitive they will need to develop programs and processes to encourage knowledge sharing within their offices. I have personally worked in an organization which did not value the knowledge of their employees. They believed everyone was replaceable; therefore employees were reluctant to share their knowledge for fear of being replaced. Consequently, as knowledgeable employees resigned their extensive knowledge and expertise went with them, and the company would struggle to regain its competitiveness
3 Knowledge Levels
When organizations are making business decisions they are more concerned with the bottom line profits This view of business often forgets the value of knowledge and the competitive advantage knowledge provides. When the executives want to see dollar signs it takes a Knowledge Manager to open their eyes to the possible gold mind they could be sitting on. A Knowledge Manger knows the potential growth of their company if it chooses to design a business mission plan that includes avenues that an employee can use to advance up the Knowledge Level Pyramid (figure 1).
The three levels of the knowledge pyramid are acquired, unique and creative knowledge levels. Most managers hire those with simply acquired knowledge, where there not looking for any special advantage, but a worker who can do the job with minimal training and supervision. What the manager hopes will happen is as a worker becomes proficient in each of their task they will begin to discover or “simply become aware of knowledge or connections between concepts that had been previously overlooked” (Henard & McFadyen, 2008) advancing them up into the unique knowledge level. The third and final level, the creative knowledge, is no longer learning concepts or connecting information, but developing breakthrough ideas, “new-to-the-world ideas” (p. 42). It is from ideas such as these that new products and services evolve and become part of your organization’s competitive edge.
Henard & McFadyen “present the knowledge pyramid as a tool to understanding the cognitive capabilities of individual employees and to help provide managers with a potential roadmap for obtaining sustained completive advantage” (p. 45). Now knowledge management (KM) must parallel the organizations mission and goals. It is not KM for the sake of KM; it must have a place and a purpose. Managers must keep the following five concepts at the forefront of their KM practices:
1. Adopt a capability mindset
2. Promote cross-pollination
3. Reduce pyramid barriers
4. Reward knowledge sharing activity
5. Mind the bottom line
Further understanding the three levels of the knowledge pyramid and how to get employees, managers and leaders to venture into the third level, creative knowledge should be the goal of all knowledge workers and managers. “Knowledge is a complex organizational resource, consisting of both common and unique facets” (p.40), programs designed to harness such knowledge must resemble that of the organization and “knowledge collaborations should always be purposeful and within the organizations business mission” (p. 46).
Tree-map: An example of a KM Tool
In the article: Evaluating a New Knowledge Management Tool, Twietmeyer, Lyth, Mallak and Aller’s (2008) introduce a tool called a Tree-map. Tree-maps are a graphical depiction of a knowledge and self evaluated levels of the knowledge collected via a survey, placed into a database software then used to generate a map, a tree-map of who has the expertise and where they can be located within an organization.
Not a new concept, but a new way to display a Knowledge Management (KM) tool used to identify varies experts within a company, tree-maps are a graphical display of who’s who within an organization in relationship to their knowledge base/expertise levels. Dalkir (2005) discusses a similar concept to the Tree-map when discussing Northrop-Grumman Xref Team (p. 254). Xref is short for Expert Reference, a group/team of information experts called upon when expert advice or knowledge was needed to fix a problem at Northrop-Grumman. Tree-maps are a simple way for anyone to identify who these experts are with in an organization. Through surveys researchers were able to populate a tree-map database to determine who and where experts could be found. An interesting and equally useful tool was that these tree-maps also identified gaps where the organization lacked from slight to sever gaps in certain areas. The knowledge of the gaps helped to identify needed training or recruitment strategies with in the company surveyed.
Beginning with the survey, the employees were asked to include some basic employment details, followed by a part two: general industry question dealing with levels of knowledge. The third and most important section asked each employee to rate there level of expertise in specific areas on a 0-5 point scale. Two primary organizational levels used for the survey results were department and location. These were selected for easy access and simple evaluation by those needing the information. The flaw to the survey was that it was a evaluation, single source. However, as a whole produced a good snapshot at what/whom the organization had working for them and what they were proficient and/or not proficient at on a self evaluated level.
The data collected when placed in the tree-map software made it very easy to identify who, and in what department/location the experts were in the given subjects, those borderline proficient and members with no expertise at all. Proving the theory that “[l]arger organization tend to be organized into profit centers, which can lead to knowledge silos” (Twietmeyer et al, 2008), these tree-maps did uncover the fact that much of the knowledge base was centered on select locations, a sort of natural progression of knowledge to the center of operations. Managers now had a tool with a simple search engine that would help locate high level experts on any given system/process, and even uncover experts previously unknown to their immediate managers.
Once managers got into the tree-maps they found another tool within the maps. The tree-maps were extremely easy to use as it was in graph format, large blocks meant expert, and small blocks meant novice. They could see where each site/location was lacking in the different areas surveyed. These knowledge gaps could be seen as potential training requirements or even pushed out to industrial recruiters in search of qualified applicants with the hopes to eliminate these knowledge gaps.
Dalkir (2005) states, one major KM process is to identify and locate knowledge within an organization, to codify the knowledge for widespread dissemination (p. 26). Twietmeyer et al, (2008) relabeled the process of codifying as producing Tree-maps a term/title of a new way to display this newly identified knowledge and a way to store the information and make the data available for widespread dissemination. In addition to successfully doing this, the surveys used to create the tree-map database also had a beneficial spin off providing managers a tool to not only identify experts, but to identify areas in need of potential recruitment or training concentrations. Tree-maps are a user friendly way of identifying experts within an organization and display that information in a way that all recipients can cipher the data.
Conclusion
This report is by no means a complete user’s guide to Knowledge Management, but an introduction to what is sure to be one of the most important organizational practices. the report has introduced Knowledge Management and some key topics within Knowledge Management. Leadership challenges can be overcome with education and return on investment strategies. KM has no limits; it can be stored, used, developed and even sold. Collecting and codifying knowledge is an important task. However, once stored it will be the responsibility of all members within an organization to understand how to retrieve the data, convert it to useable explicit knowledge, use it and resave the new product, the new tacit knowledge. This paper was a research attempt to present some basic to intermediate concepts with regards to knowledge management. Interests in KM should be researched as KM is an ever changing business practice and not a trend, here today gone tomorrow, but here for ever!
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Organizational Development Report #1
Use the EDIT link to upload your section of the Team Report so that all members can work together on developing the entire report.
Running head: KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: A PRACTICE, NOT A TREND
Knowledge Management: A Practice, Not a Trend
Byron Godfrey
Coleen Sawaya
David Tiensvold
Harold Johnson
National University
ODV 601 Integrating Performance Management
Technology & Organizational Communications
15 August 2009
Executive Summary
Your employees harness a power that can not be measured or graphed, this power is knowledge and taking that knowledge and building on it will be the key to longevity and success within any industry. Any organization looking to blow their competition away, must be well versed in Knowledge Management (KM), have Knowledge Managers, Knowledge Workers and a way to harness every byte of explicit and tacit knowledge currently bouncing around within the walls of their organization. This paper will be of interest to anyone wanting to learn about Knowledge Management, its characteristics and is sure to spawn interest in further studies in the subject of Knowledge Management.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary (David) …………………..………………………………. 2
Purpose (David) ……………………………..…….……………………………. 4
Leadership, Technology & Change (Byron) ….……………………………. 4
Knowledge Management(Harold)….…..…..….… ………………………… 7
Sustaining Knowledge(Coleen)…..…...……. ..…………………………… 10
3 Knowledge Levels (David)................……………………………. 12
Tree-map: An Example of a KM Tool (David)…………………………….… 14
Conclusion (David). ……………………………………………………………. 15
References ……….…………………………..………………………………….16
Knowledge Management: A Practice not a Trend
Purpose
The purpose of this paper was to conduct research on Knowledge Management, an organization’s attempt to harnessing both the tacit and explicit knowledge of their employees, Knowledge Management (KM), first a trend, has become more important as a business practice as industries evolve and globalize. Historically, business could rely on their employees to remain employed within their company from entry level to retirement. However, in today’s workplace a 100% turn around is not uncommon and with that the majority of tacit knowledge, skills and abilities of each exiting employee leaves with them. In an attempt to prevent this organizations have began to codify and store as much of this information as possible and labeled these efforts as knowledge management.
This paper will introduce Knowledge Management, leadership challenges, technology and change. Additionally, the research will explain how to sustain the knowledge and ways to map the collect knowledge as well as how to develop employees using knowledge learned and gained.
Leadership, Technology & Change
In the age of global mobility, organizations are constantly struggling to incorporate innovative methodology for this thing called “technology.” In today’s global economy, many organizational leaders are beginning to realize that they need to transform their organizations into an information technology infrastructure – with the hopes of expanding their enterprise and creating leverage opportunities for a competitive advantage in today’s global market. Many leaders within these transitional companies are inquiring to professional business consultants about just “how they exactly go about building a “chaordic” organization that is adaptive to changing conditions, controlling at the center while empowering at the periphery, leveraging worldwide learning capabilities, and that transcends geographic and divisional borders” (Beaman, 2003). The answer is creating an informational technology data based infrastructure that will allow the leaders of these transitional corporations the ability to preserve their collective intelligence for future use – while also providing the capability of retrieving historical data for statistical analysis and codifying knowledge for future use as well. The ability for an organization to retain the knowledge that is embedded within its infrastructure is crucial to its sustainability – as well as serving as a learning tool for the leaders within the company structure, thereby providing them the ability to look back for statistical errors within its realm.
Organizational hierarchy must begin understand the importance of knowledge retention, as well as coming to grips with the fact that managers of knowledge need to understand the basic principles of leadership. Leadership is the ability to influence and motivate others towards a desired goal while applying analytical foresight and incorporating a detailed SWOT analysis to recognize any potential threats. Ronald Heifetz (1994) argues that “leadership is more then just simply influencing people” (p.20). He goes on in further to explain that “leaders are more likely to produce socially useful outcomes by setting goals that meet the needs of both the leader and the follower” (p.20).
Jim Collin’s (2001) book Good To Great, stated that “there are five levels of leadership that need to be identified by leaders within the workforce in order to maximize their potential of influence upon their peers within their organization” (p.20). He stated that all individuals of responsibility should strive to reach the highest level of leadership - which is level five. Collins also stated that “level five leaders are those individuals within a corporation that build greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional good will – while also channeling their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company” (Collins, 2001, p.21). Collin’s book [Good To Great] referenced that many great leaders strive towards being at the pinnacle of their craft, but most leaders never really surpass the level four of leadership. Level four leaders can be considered effective leaders. Level four leaders leadership ability allows them to instill commitment within the infrastructure, and establish a vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision – while stimulating higher performance standards within their organization. Understanding levels of leadership is (or should be)the focal point for individuals within the organizational hierarchy to achieve success, but just as importantly leaders need to be able to identify their own leadership traits within themselves which ultimately falls within the various levels of leadership.
The Trait Theory is a major approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of traits, which can be defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion. The trait approach was one of the first systematic attempts to study leadership. Peter G. Northhouse (2007) referenced in his book Leadership: Theory and Practice, that leadership trait was first studied in the early 20th century to determine what made certain people great leaders. He stated that the theories that were developed were called the great man theories, because “they focused on indentifying the innate qualities and characteristics possessed by great social, political, and military leaders” (p.15). Kouzes and Posner (2002) identified in their book The Leadership Challenge that true leaders value their craft of inspiring and influencing workers toward the organizational objective, and they continue to focus on how to become better at leading people. They focused on five leadership traits that people look for in a leader. Kouzes and Posner stated that “if you are able to increase your skill in these five traits, that you will make it easier for people to want to follow you” (p. 24). The less time you have to spend on getting people to follow you, the more time you have to spend refining exactly where you want to go and how to get there.
The five leadership traits are:
1. Honest
2. Forward-Looking
3. Competent
4. Inspiring
5. Intelligent
Organizational leaders in today’s global economy need to understand that their strengths and weakness play to those unique qualities to help drive their employees to their desired objective. Leaders within the organization need to engage their coworkers in the art of communication to get a better understanding of the day-to day operations – as well as to identify any unforeseen possible threats. Stan Herman (2002) alludes to conversation as the core of any business. He suggest this because “ collaborative knowledge creation and decision making involves content, combined with structured conversations for action” (p.44) Communication is crucial to all leadership exchanges, and the use of emotional intelligence is critical in identifying methods for resolving conflict within the organization – as well as interacting with colleagues. Kouzes and Posner (2002) describe emotional intelligence as “the ability to manage ourselves and our relationship effectively – it consists of four capabilities: self-awareness, self management, social awareness, and social skill” (p.284). Another process these transformational leaders need to identify within their inner being is their ability to adapt to difficult situations during a period of time where chaos seems to be evident within their organization. Relationships are vital in business, and individuals of responsibility within the organization need to examine the Transformational Change Theory. The theory is a shift in the business culture of an organization resulting from a change in the underlying strategy and processes that the organization has used in the past. A transformational change is designed to be organization-wide and is enacted over a period of time. “The effective way to manage change successfully is to create it” (Drucker, 2004, p.69). The situational leadership theory also allows leaders to determine the nature of the occurrence, and identify which leadership style is best for handling circumstances. Northhouse (2007) states that “situational leadership stresses that leaders needs to find out about their subordinate’s needs then adapt their style accordingly. Leaders can not use one single style; they must be willing to change their style to meet the requirements of the situation” (p.97). “The servant leader’s paramount satisfaction lies in the growth and development of those they lead in the organization” (Marshall, 2003, p.71).
Organizational leaders need to clearly identify their occupational objective – while outlining a detailed descriptive task analysis of their responsibility. Organizational leaders also need to understand and identify levels of leadership within their organization in relation to identifying leaders and managers within their infrastructure. Leadership is a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Management is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises of planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organizations (a group of one or more people or entities) efforts for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. Northhouse (2007) reveals the difference between the two entities: “management was created as way to reduce chaos in organizations and to make them run more effectively and efficiently” (p.9) Effective is doing the right things, while efficiency is doing things right. Northhouse also states “the overriding function of management is to provide order ands consistency to organizations, whereas the primary function of leadership is to produce change and movement. Management is about seeking order and stability; leadership is about seeking adaptive and constructive change” (p.10). Tom Marshall (2003) author of Understanding Leadership goes a step further by clearly explaining the difference between the two leadership roles. He says that you can have a good leader who is also a good manager, or a manager who is a good leader, but the two functions are quite different and must not be confused. He elaborates “Management is essentially the stewardship of resources, and its concern is making the organization work efficiently and effectively. This involves logistics, information, people, and systems; it builds teams, control budgets, measures performance, monitors progress, and initiates corrective action where needed. These operating functions are vital to the success of the venture, but they have essentially nothing to do with leadership. You can be using every one of them and not be leading at all – you are merely reacting to situations as they arise (p.10). Understanding Leadership (2003) reveals that individuals may be able to lead effectively, and not yet be involved with operational or managerial activities. Leadership, in other words, is not management, and it’s not administration. Peter Senge (2004) said that “the executive who works at making strengths productive – his own as well as those of others – works at making the organizational performance compatible with personal achievement” (p.276). Great leaders have the ability to influence the employees to increase knowledge management in the organization. These leaders create a learning organization where sharing knowledge is part of the daily routine.
Knowledge Mangement
We will present you with a definition and a brief history of knowledge management (KM) including its informal beginnings (pre-internet) and the virtual explosion onto the scene as a must have commodity for knowledge based organizations. We will then explain why knowledge management is needed in order for companies to be competitive. Finally, we will go through the actual implementation process using a KM strategy focused on initial needs analysis.
The term Knowledge Management (KM) is not new. One could say it has been around for decades under various aliases and has its beginning in a variety of disciplines and domains. Peter Drucker, Paul Strassmann, and Peter Senge are pioneers of this movement in the United States. Druker and Strassmann have stressed the growing importance of information and explicit knowledge as organizational recourses, and Senge has focused on the “learning organization”, a cultural dimension of managing knowledge. In the early 1980’s, the importance of knowledge as an asset was recognized, however, there was little effort by mainstream economists to create a strategy for managing it. In the meantime, need for a method to organize information in a meaningful way could not be ignored. Technology’s complex nature demanded organization devise a plan to deal with the exponential increases in the amount of available knowledge and increasingly complex products and processes. Before the internet, Doug Engelbart’s “Augment” (an early hypertext/groupware application) and Acksyn’s and McCracken’s “Knowledge Management System” (an open distributed hypermedia tool) were early attempts at using an automated system of storing and sharing knowledge.
By the late 1980’s/early 1990’s, knowledge management articles began to appear in well known journals. A big moment for knowledge management occurred when Tom Steward published his 1991 article, “Brainstorm” in Fortune magazine. This was the introduction of the phrase knowledge management to the popular press. The internet sensation carried the message of knowledge management nation (and world) wide. Companies are now actively using knowledge management strategies to maintain a competitive advantage. Regular seminars and conferences are held by experts to report to organizations the latest innovations in KM.
Today there are at least 43 “definitions” of knowledge management that attempt to explain exactly what is and what it is used for. One article compared the phrase knowledge management with a doctor attempting to describe “heath care” or a CEO trying to define “management” or a CFO explaining “compensation”. Like heath care, management, or compensation, knowledge management cannot be explained in a sentence or even a paragraph. It is a process that is ongoing and has many levels.
One formal definition of knowledge management is the deliberate and systematic coordination of an organization’s people, technology, processes, and organizational structure in order to add value through the promotion of creating, sharing, and applying knowledge as well as through the feeding of valuable lessons learned and best practices into corporate memory in order to foster continued organizational learning. I think this is an adequate definition of what knowledge management is. However, to make the meaning of KM clearer, I would like to explain why it is needed in today’s corporate environment.
To understand knowledge management, you must understand the changing workforce. Workers are getting older and with age is experience. Long-serving staffs have a depth of knowledge that is relied upon by other staff, particularly in environments where little effort has been put into capturing or managing knowledge at an organizational level. What this means is if these experienced older workers leave the company, with them goes their knowledge and experience. There needs to be a mechanism in place to capture and share information with the entire organization. Doing so will ensure valuable information is maintained and accessible. Other issues warranting investment in an effective knowledge management system for companies with geographically separated elements include: cultural issues, duplication of effort, and inconsistencies in practices. Identify the correct KM strategy is the key to solving many of these issues.
In this section we will discuss the steps to take when implementing KM in an organization. First, you must realize there are different methods and techniques that can be used when implementing KM. There is no one method that will work with all organizations. In fact, each attempt at implementation will be unique to an organization’s size, strategic direction, history and available resources (to name a few). What we provided is general guidance for implementation based on an initial needs analysis.
The first step to implement a KM strategy is to identify the problem. To identify the problem, you must interact with the organization. The article identifies two possible methods for interacting and identifying issues associated with the company, “Top-down” and “Bottom-up”. Top Down: The overall strategic direction of the organization is used to identify the focus of the knowledge management initiative. This is reflected in a series of activities designed to meet this broad goal.
Bottom Up: Research is conducted into the activities of staff involved in key business processes. The findings of this research highlights key staff needs and issues, which are then, tackled through a range of knowledge management initiatives.
There are two common mistakes people make when implementing a KM strategy. One is to focus solely on the top down approach which primarily focuses on upper management’s “vision”, identifying high-level objectives such as ‘become a knowledge-enabled organization’. Focusing on higher level strategic direction makes it more difficult to identify with lower level workers who hold valuable information that upper management may not be aware of. With little understanding of key issues and needs of the staff throughout the organization, these initiatives found it difficult to engage staff in the required cultural and process change.
Implementing the wrong KM strategy is the second common mistake and is directly related to the first. By potentially missing key information from the front-line staff by focusing on the top-down approach, it is likely that you would not identify the real problems with the organization and as a result implement the wrong KM strategy. As a result, many of these initiatives had little long-term impact on the organization, despite the initial efforts.
It is recommended to use a combination of both methods with emphasis on the bottom up method, supplement by the top down method. The reason is that the front-line employees such as receptionist, salespeople, and operators have the field experience and face to face interaction with customers. They are the ones that must have information to present to customer and they are the ones who know when there is a gap in information. This is not true for most upper management who do not get an opportunity to be a part of day to day operations on the ground level.
It is recommended to use the holistic approach to identify a wide range of issues. The easiest way to get to the cause of the problem is to keep it simple when doing your analysis. By starting with the needs analysis, approaches can be targeted to address the most critical issues, or to deliver the greatest business benefits. The first step is to identify the key staff groups who are usually directly involved with exchanging information with the customer. Once these individuals have been identified, you must decide which need analysis technique will be used. There are a variety of techniques including: facilitated discussions, focus groups, surveys, staff interviews, and workplace observation. It is recommended that more than one method is used to ensure you get a more complete idea of the issues employees are having.
Once you have completed your needs analysis with the key staff, you should then concentrate on the strategic focus to get ‘top level’ perspective. There are many sources available to determine the company’s strategic focus. These sources include: interviews with senior management, organizational strategy documents, results of staff satisfaction surveys, external market research, and industry ‘best practices’. You should also make an effort to use more than one of these methods the get a clearer idea of the company’s strategic focus. When all the research is collected and interviews completed, it is time to present your findings and proposed a knowledge management strategy.
Your research should uncover a broad range of issues within the organization. Some of the more common findings according to the text are: difficulty finding important corporate information, reliance on rumor and gossip as the key source of organizational news, and duplication of effort between regions. Fortunately, your previous research gives you insight on the organization and will be a valuable tool when making your recommendations for the organization. Some common knowledge management strategies recommended include: formalizing communities of practice, facilitating skills transfer from retiring staff, and implementing new learning approaches, including e-learning. Remember each organization is unique. You will have to approach each organization with an open mind because no one method will work for every organization.
Sustaining Knowledge
In today’s ever changing fast pace global environment, corporations need to acknowledge the importance of knowledge embedded within their employees and incorporate strategic processes to document and share that knowledge.
Many analysts and writers have described knowledge and expertise as interchangeable while others have split the two and separated the definitions. Prusak & Matson (2006 p. 30) said that “Business organizations are coming to view knowledge as their most valuable and strategic resource.” Similarly, Lank (1997) has stated that knowledge and its manifestation in the expertise of people is nowadays seen as the greatest asset of value creation for organizations. However, some analysts have differentiated between knowledge and expertise. Bender & Fish defined knowledge as originating in the head of the individual and builds on information that is transformed and enriched by personal experience, beliefs and values with decision and action-relevant meaning. They continued to state that the knowledge formed by an individual will differ from another person receiving the same information. Knowledge is the mental state of ideas, facts, concepts, data and techniques, recorded in an individual’s memory. They differentiate expertise as more specialized, a deep knowledge and understanding of a certain field. An expert is able to create uniquely new knowledge and solutions in his/her field of expertise. In this sense expertise is gained through experience, training and education. It is developed over a long period of time and most importantly it remains with that person.
Knowledge is the most powerful tool an employee can arm him/herself with to become an infallible asset to the corporation. Individuals have the knowledge and expertise to achieve successful business goals of the organization. However, the monopoly of information can be harmful to the company. Therefore, organizations need to apply strategic planning to develop organizational tools to create a culture where knowledge sharing is not a threat to the individual. Individuals need to be motivated to share the knowledge, and feel empowered to be part of the organizations achievements. If these programs are not developed to promote knowledge sharing, individuals within the organization will likely leave with their knowledge, and the organization will suffer.
Organizations need to develop programs to share knowledge before it walks out the door. In an article written by Mohammad & Sohrabi they discuss how a software firm realized that they needed to create a program to track the knowledge, track who has the knowledge, and where it is. “A structured way of managing knowledge and treating the knowledge and its owners as valuable assets could help the company leverage the knowledge they possess” (Mohammad & Sohrabi, 2009). The article continues to discuss a proposed solution of readiness assessment which is a process of implementing and gauging knowledge management. Accordingly, this assessment should provide answers to two fundamental questions: “What is a firm’s current Knowledge Management capability? And what changes must be in place before embarking on a Knowledge Management initiative? An instrument to assess readiness should be developed based on the premise that Knowledge Management is enhanced through critical success factors” (Mohammad & Sohrabi, 2009). The article continues to discuss success factors which were extracted from other papers dealing with knowledge management which were used to embark this project.
De Long & Davenport discuss a program Siemens has in place. This program directs Siemens managers to ask five questions when determining the best method to transfer valuable, imperiled knowledge. The questions are:
1. What is the Life Cycle of this knowledge? – Will the knowledge be obsolete in a few months or still valuable in 15 years from now?
2. What types of knowledge are involved? Explicit ruled-based knowledge that is easily documented or tacit experiential knowledge, or implicit knowledge (explicit knowledge not yet articulated)?
3. How much time is there before the expert leaves the organization? Is it a matter of days or years?
4. What is the expert’s level of motivation and capability for sharing the knowledge? What is the successor’s motivation and capability for acquiring that knowledge?
5. What are the costs of applying the specific methods of knowledge retention being considered?
Another example by Kamph (2007) focuses on the utility industry. In that sector there have been many talks about escalating demand for power, and demand will outstrip supply in the near future. The power industry is also experiencing a shortage of critical supply in skilled employees. They have projected due to retiring employees, the skill level of the company will decrease by 15 %, and the error rate would increase from 5 to 6 % over the next 5 years. The utility company looked at their entire range of the organizational knowledge and actual costs associated to determine and design an effective strategy to combat the knowledge loss. This included calculating the costs for recruiting, new hire development programs, supplemental training programs, attrition and skill losses, error rates, process improvements and estimated efficiency improvements, and based on these costs the company has the data it needs to develop a long-term plan to meet the challenges of the changing workforce and improve its corporate financial and competitive standing. The utility company embarked on a series of workforce optimization program. One of their improvements was 10 hour supplemental training for each fully qualified employee would add one additional skill a year for each person. The utility company continues to strategize and is on its way to improving its knowledge retention so that it will have the critical skills it needs in the future.
Chevron is an organization “focused on rewarding efforts to build a learning organization by sharing and managing knowledge throughout their company” (Prusak & Matson, 2006 p. 183). In 1995 Kenneth T. Derr gave a speech stating “We will create an organization that learns faster and better than competitors through benchmarking … through sharing and implementing best practices … by learning from experience … and through continuous individual learning and personal growth”. (Prusak & Matson, 2006 p 184). The Chevron way is a guiding set of objectives, principles and values that define who they are, where they are going, and how they need to interact with each other to get there. Kenneth continues to say that one of the vital successes is building a learning organization. Chevron encourages employees to share information and the CEO does share best practices with employees. In addition top people from companies such as HP, Motorola, and GE are asked to speak at Chevron’s monthly Management Committee meetings, and during these meeting there is a forum for the Chevron teams to tell their success stories in using knowledge to improve operations and results. The formula for continuous improvement for Chevron is clear objectives, the opportunity to share rewards and an empowered workforce. (Pruzak & Matson, 2006). The objectives can be a financial goal or production target. The sharing rewards may be their Success Sharing bonus program, which is based partly on corporate earnings, partly on competitor earnings, and partly on safety and operating costs. Though sharing rewards isn’t managing knowledge, it gives everyone a good reason to do it. The empowerment delegates’ authority helps people feel ownership for their work and give their best to the organization. Chevron has been recognized as one of the Top 20 most admired knowledge enterprises. They recognize that “Yesterday’s learning curve has become today’s race track and that means building a superior learning organization is now a necessity for any company that wants to be a top competitor” (Pruzak & Matson, 2006 p 191).
Sustaining Knowledge management is critical to the success of any organization. If organizations want to continue to be competitive they will need to develop programs and processes to encourage knowledge sharing within their offices. I have personally worked in an organization which did not value the knowledge of their employees. They believed everyone was replaceable; therefore employees were reluctant to share their knowledge for fear of being replaced. Consequently, as knowledgeable employees resigned their extensive knowledge and expertise went with them, and the company would struggle to regain its competitiveness
3 Knowledge Levels
When organizations are making business decisions they are more concerned with the bottom line profits This view of business often forgets the value of knowledge and the competitive advantage knowledge provides. When the executives want to see dollar signs it takes a Knowledge Manager to open their eyes to the possible gold mind they could be sitting on. A Knowledge Manger knows the potential growth of their company if it chooses to design a business mission plan that includes avenues that an employee can use to advance up the Knowledge Level Pyramid (figure 1).
The three levels of the knowledge pyramid are acquired, unique and creative knowledge levels. Most managers hire those with simply acquired knowledge, where there not looking for any special advantage, but a worker who can do the job with minimal training and supervision. What the manager hopes will happen is as a worker becomes proficient in each of their task they will begin to discover or “simply become aware of knowledge or connections between concepts that had been previously overlooked” (Henard & McFadyen, 2008) advancing them up into the unique knowledge level. The third and final level, the creative knowledge, is no longer learning concepts or connecting information, but developing breakthrough ideas, “new-to-the-world ideas” (p. 42). It is from ideas such as these that new products and services evolve and become part of your organization’s competitive edge.
Henard & McFadyen “present the knowledge pyramid as a tool to understanding the cognitive capabilities of individual employees and to help provide managers with a potential roadmap for obtaining sustained completive advantage” (p. 45). Now knowledge management (KM) must parallel the organizations mission and goals. It is not KM for the sake of KM; it must have a place and a purpose. Managers must keep the following five concepts at the forefront of their KM practices:
1. Adopt a capability mindset
2. Promote cross-pollination
3. Reduce pyramid barriers
4. Reward knowledge sharing activity
5. Mind the bottom line
Further understanding the three levels of the knowledge pyramid and how to get employees, managers and leaders to venture into the third level, creative knowledge should be the goal of all knowledge workers and managers. “Knowledge is a complex organizational resource, consisting of both common and unique facets” (p.40), programs designed to harness such knowledge must resemble that of the organization and “knowledge collaborations should always be purposeful and within the organizations business mission” (p. 46).
Tree-map: An example of a KM Tool
In the article: Evaluating a New Knowledge Management Tool, Twietmeyer, Lyth, Mallak and Aller’s (2008) introduce a tool called a Tree-map. Tree-maps are a graphical depiction of a knowledge and self evaluated levels of the knowledge collected via a survey, placed into a database software then used to generate a map, a tree-map of who has the expertise and where they can be located within an organization.
Not a new concept, but a new way to display a Knowledge Management (KM) tool used to identify varies experts within a company, tree-maps are a graphical display of who’s who within an organization in relationship to their knowledge base/expertise levels. Dalkir (2005) discusses a similar concept to the Tree-map when discussing Northrop-Grumman Xref Team (p. 254). Xref is short for Expert Reference, a group/team of information experts called upon when expert advice or knowledge was needed to fix a problem at Northrop-Grumman. Tree-maps are a simple way for anyone to identify who these experts are with in an organization. Through surveys researchers were able to populate a tree-map database to determine who and where experts could be found. An interesting and equally useful tool was that these tree-maps also identified gaps where the organization lacked from slight to sever gaps in certain areas. The knowledge of the gaps helped to identify needed training or recruitment strategies with in the company surveyed.
Beginning with the survey, the employees were asked to include some basic employment details, followed by a part two: general industry question dealing with levels of knowledge. The third and most important section asked each employee to rate there level of expertise in specific areas on a 0-5 point scale. Two primary organizational levels used for the survey results were department and location. These were selected for easy access and simple evaluation by those needing the information. The flaw to the survey was that it was a evaluation, single source. However, as a whole produced a good snapshot at what/whom the organization had working for them and what they were proficient and/or not proficient at on a self evaluated level.
The data collected when placed in the tree-map software made it very easy to identify who, and in what department/location the experts were in the given subjects, those borderline proficient and members with no expertise at all. Proving the theory that “[l]arger organization tend to be organized into profit centers, which can lead to knowledge silos” (Twietmeyer et al, 2008), these tree-maps did uncover the fact that much of the knowledge base was centered on select locations, a sort of natural progression of knowledge to the center of operations. Managers now had a tool with a simple search engine that would help locate high level experts on any given system/process, and even uncover experts previously unknown to their immediate managers.
Once managers got into the tree-maps they found another tool within the maps. The tree-maps were extremely easy to use as it was in graph format, large blocks meant expert, and small blocks meant novice. They could see where each site/location was lacking in the different areas surveyed. These knowledge gaps could be seen as potential training requirements or even pushed out to industrial recruiters in search of qualified applicants with the hopes to eliminate these knowledge gaps.
Dalkir (2005) states, one major KM process is to identify and locate knowledge within an organization, to codify the knowledge for widespread dissemination (p. 26). Twietmeyer et al, (2008) relabeled the process of codifying as producing Tree-maps a term/title of a new way to display this newly identified knowledge and a way to store the information and make the data available for widespread dissemination. In addition to successfully doing this, the surveys used to create the tree-map database also had a beneficial spin off providing managers a tool to not only identify experts, but to identify areas in need of potential recruitment or training concentrations. Tree-maps are a user friendly way of identifying experts within an organization and display that information in a way that all recipients can cipher the data.
Conclusion
This report is by no means a complete user’s guide to Knowledge Management, but an introduction to what is sure to be one of the most important organizational practices. the report has introduced Knowledge Management and some key topics within Knowledge Management. Leadership challenges can be overcome with education and return on investment strategies. KM has no limits; it can be stored, used, developed and even sold. Collecting and codifying knowledge is an important task. However, once stored it will be the responsibility of all members within an organization to understand how to retrieve the data, convert it to useable explicit knowledge, use it and resave the new product, the new tacit knowledge. This paper was a research attempt to present some basic to intermediate concepts with regards to knowledge management. Interests in KM should be researched as KM is an ever changing business practice and not a trend, here today gone tomorrow, but here for ever!
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